Brian Gary, 41, a convicted armed
robber, in violation of his parole, is now charged with murdering a
Granite City, Illinois woman on Saturday, January 7th, or Sunday
morning, January 8th, 2006. The body of Carol Newby, 60, wasn't
found until Wednesday afternoon when a warrant server went to her
apartment to deliver an eviction notice. Granite City, population
33k, is located adjacent to East St. Louis, to the north.

Investigators believe Newby, known for helping those in need, was
killed late Saturday night or early Sunday morning by a man with
whom she was acquainted.

Brian Gary was initially arrested just before 2:30 a.m. Sunday
morning a few blocks from the murder scene during a disturbance
call. Granite City officers found him with a stereo that didn't
belong to him. They also learned he was in violation of his parole
from an armed robbery conviction out of Cook County, Illinois.

On Monday, authorities with the Illinois Department of Corrections
returned Gary to the Menard Correctional Center. When Newby's body
was discovered Wednesday, members of the Major Case Squad were able
to connect the stolen stereo taken from Brian Gary to Newby's home.

Major Jeff Connor, deputy commander of the Major Case Squad, says,
"We don't believe that he went there to rob her, but once he was
there, something happened that escalated into the murder." Connor
adds Gary's arrest early Sunday morning came within hours of Newby's
death.

Investigators say Brian Gary was supposed to be in Cook County, but
had come to Granite City about a year ago, staying on and off with
his brother. Family members say Newby was just days away from moving
to Jefferson City and the home of her son-in-law when she was
killed.

Killed in Her Own Home by an
Ex-Con !

Carol Newby - Age 60

Carol Newby was Described as Religious and Creative.

She mixed Rap Music with Bible Verses and Preached.

The following article is excerpted from
the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

By Paul Hampel

ST. Louis Post-Dispatch
01/13/2006

Granite City, Illinois

A woman known in her Granite City neighborhood as "The Rappin' Grandma"
who helped others was murdered by an ex-convict from Chicago whom she
had befriended, police said.

Gary was charged with first-degree murder. Prosecutors say he beat Newby
with a bludgeon and smothered her after she let him into her apartment
last weekend.

Gary has been held in the Menard Correctional Center since his arrest
early Sunday in connection with a peace disturbance in the 2000 block of
Cleveland Avenue in Granite City. He was charged then with a parole
violation out of Cook County, where he had been convicted of armed
robbery.

Police said Gary had been an acquaintance of Newby's.

"We believe the victim let Gary into her home," Granite City Police
Major Jeff Connor said at a news conference Friday. "It was in her
character to try to help people. But not all those people were what we
would call stellar individuals."

When he was arrested, Gary was in possession of a stereo that was later
traced to Newby, police said.

"That was the vital piece of evidence," said Granite City Police Chief
Rich Miller.

An acquaintance found Newby's body Wednesday evening in her apartment at
2118 Delmar Avenue.

Police said they could not confirm an exact time of death, but Connor
said he believes Gary killed Newby shortly before police arrested him at
2:19 a.m. Sunday.

Miller said that police "do not believe Gary went there (to Newby's
apartment) to rob the victim, but things escalated."

Police said Gary had been living for about a year with his brother in
the 2400 block of Delmar, a few blocks from Newby.

Police said drugs have been a problem in the area in recent years.

Gary was also charged Friday with the burglary on Christmas of a
television in the same block where Newby lived.

Miller complained that Newby's killing was the second murder in the last
year in Granite City allegedly committed by a parolee from the Chicago
area. In the previous case, James W. Batey, 30, described by police as a
drifter from Chicago, was charged last February with fatally stabbing
Guy P. Abramson, 46, in a vacant apartment.

"I'd like to know how these people on parole from Cook County are
allowed to move down here to Southern Illinois," Miller said.

Newby was described as religious and creative. She mixed rap with Bible
verses and preached.

Gary was being held on $575,000 bail.

Carol J. Newby Giving a
Gospel Rap Music Performance

Murder
victim, Carol Newby, was known as ‘Rapping Grandma'

The following article is from the Granite
City Press RecordMichael Heil
Of the Suburban Journals
Granite City Press Record
01/15/2006

Carol Newby possessed a charisma and talent that had
young and old alike marching to a positive beat.

Newby was known in Granite City as "Rapping Grandma." Over the last
seven years, the 60-year-old grandmother of two participated in various
functions throughout the area, reciting verses from the Bible that she
used to create a Gospel rap called "Battle Cry of the King's Soldiers:
Do You Have Jesus?"

"Doing this gives me the chance to share the Gospel with people who are
down and out. I want to help them. I want to change their lives for the
better," Newby said during an interview last year.

The good-natured Newby was found dead Wednesday by her landlord in her
apartment at 2118 Delmar Avenue in Granite City. The landlord, Julian
Wallace, could not be reached for comment.

On Friday, Brian E. Gary, 41, was charged with first-degree murder in
Newby's death and with burglary for allegedly breaking into a different
residence on Delmar Avenue on Christmas Day. Gary is in custody at
Menard Correction Center on a parole violation warrant.

According to a press release from the Madison County State's Attorney's
Office, Newby was murdered following and argument and struggle with
Gary. He was an acquaintance of Newby, who was last seen alive Jan. 7 at
the Taco Bell on Madison Avenue.

Granite City Assistant Police Chief Jeff Connor said Friday that
authorities have "a vital piece of evidence that connects Gary to the
murder."

That evidence is a small stereo that police seized from Gary last Sunday
at a residence in the 2000 block of Cleveland Boulevard. Police
responded to a disturbance at the residence and took Gary into custody
on a warrant stemming from an armed robbery conviction out of Cook
County in 1999.

Gary was transported to the Menard Correctional Center, where he was
interviewed Thursday by detectives.

Police arrived at Newby's apartment about 5:21 p.m. Wednesday after
receiving a phone call from Wallace, who discovered Newby's body after
jarring open the front door of the apartment. Authorities believe that
Newby was murdered shortly before Gary was taken into custody on
Cleveland Boulevard.

An autopsy performed Thursday by the Madison County Coroner's Office
indicated that the cause of death was due to severe head and facial
trauma. Police Chief Richard Miller would not say if authorities
confiscated a murder weapon.

The St. Louis Metropolitan Area Major Case Squad assisted the Granite
City Police Department in the investigation into Newby's death. Connor
was the deputy commander.

Connor said that Gary had lived on Edison Avenue for about a year, at
times with his brother. Police don't know how long Newby lived in the
apartment, but Connor said she went out of her way to help people. Some
of the people she came in contact with weren't "stellar," he said.

"There were a lot of people in and out of the house because she was a
friendly person. She acted like a counselor," he said.

In June, the Press-Record interviewed Newby about her Gospel rap. At
that time, she lived on the first floor of the two-story apartment
duplex with her daughter.

Newby had been taking medicine for a heart ailment, but that didn't stop
her from rapping.

"I noticed young people were drawn to rap and rock. God has given me
rhythm and the ability to do both," Newby said during the interview
while donning her special "rapping" hat. "People are surprised and
curious because of my age."

Newby said she was given the name "Rapping Grandma" by the Rev. John
Henry Williams of Shining Light Church in Venice.

"I rapped there. He thought it was the perfect name for me. It really
caught on. That's what everybody calls me," she said.

Last summer Newby performed at St. John's Lutheran Church in Granite
City as part of a fund-raising event and in St. Louis at the New Life
Evangelistic Center. The New Life event was attended by a group of 150,
many of whom were homeless.

Newby's life was centered on God and helping others. A couple years ago
when she was in Pontoon Beach she came across two young men about to buy
liquor. One was considering suicide, she said, so she introduced herself
as "Rapping Grandma'' before she performed for them.

"I stopped it. I gave him hope," she said.

Newby's apartment was tidy and filled with religious items, including a
large cross hanging from a wall in the living room area. Newby said that
every time she looked at the cross, she felt content about life.

"I've dedicated my life to the Lord. He's fed me spiritually. He's given
me the strength to go on and accept what ever comes my way," said Newby,
who had little or no income and apparently lived at the apartment for
free.

A Google News Search (carol newby murder granite city)
turned up nine articles on this brutal murder. All of these articles
were from the East St. Louis/St. Louis area. This murder reinforces the
danger involved with being too closely associated with Black males. Many
people have a natural inclination to be helpful, but, if you are not
careful, this can cause you serious problems.

This is another murder which has taken place on the
fringe of the Bible Belt, just outside of the South. As I have stated in
a previous case study, the people who live on the fringe of the Bible
Belt have a tendency to be overly religious. That is, they have a
tendency to create an identity centered almost entirely around their
religion. The reason for this is because, in these amorphous regions, on
the fringe of the Bible Belt, the social structure is lacking to such an
extent that the people have to rely on religion to maintain their
identity. And, a second point to be made is that the relationship
between the Blacks and the Whites is not of long standing, and the Black
and the Whites do not have any real respect for one another. Their
relationship is artificial and oscillates between total charity and
benevolence on the part of the Whites to total lack of respect and
hatred on the part of the Blacks.

By contrast, the people who live in the Deep South have a
social structure that has been established between the Blacks and the
Whites. The people of the Deep South have created an identity centered
around their "Southernness," i.e., they know who they are through their
history, through the fact that they owned slaves, and that they fought a
war with the Northern States. Although the African Americans are no
longer slaves, the Blacks and the Whites have an established social
structure, in which both find security. This structure provides both
communities with a basis for their identity. The people who live on the
fringe of the The Bible Belt (one could also say: on the fringe of
the Deep South), do not have a history of owning slaves or of having
fought a war together, and the relationship between the Blacks and the
Whites in these areas is not as clearly defined as in the Deep South.

When a relationship is not clearly defined, both parties
do not behave in conventional, predictable ways vis-à-vis one another.
Hence you have the Whites behaving in overly friendly and even fawning
ways toward the Blacks and the Blacks often exploit this attitude -
sometimes by becoming violent with the very people who have tried to
help them. And this brings us full circle, back to the relationship
between Carol Newby and Brian Gary. Mrs. Newby's Christian charity was a
poor substitute for the social structure that exists in the Deep South
which serves to keep the Blacks respectful of White people. Primitive
people respect firmness and strength, but they don't respect weakness,
prostration and servility.

There was a
similar
case that occurred on October 28, 2005, in Pasadena, Texas
(Population 120k, a southeast suburb of Houston).
Mrs. Betty Blair, 77, widow of the
former president of the Pasadena School Board, Robert Blair, was killed
by three Hurricane Katrina evacuees - one Black, one Asian, and one
Hispanic. Mrs. Blair, who was a devout Christian (Catholic) and a Church
Leader, was helping the trio by paying them to do odd jobs and yard work
on her property. They strangled her to death. Mrs. Blair was described
as a very sweet and giving person. Again, Pasadena and Houston are in
the amorphous area in the western reaches of the Bible Belt. Those who
have demonstrated excessive charity toward such no-account low-life have
paid dearly for their excesses.

The social dynamic which I have described above is
extremely difficult to stop. This means that more murders of this type
will take place in the near future. I can only issue the same warning
that I did after the deaths of Robert Osborn, Damon Womble and Betty
Jean Sweet - all very trusting, mild-mannered Christian people from the
fringe of the Bible Belt: Be alert at all times, but especially so when
Black males are around. And don't allow some modern-day, distorted
interpretations of Christianity allow you to fall prey to violent,
no-account low-life. Christianity has not survived for 2000 years
through Christians allowing no-good heathens into their homes, only to
have them kill you. Rather than letting modern-day suicidal fads in
Christianity establish your identity and determine your behavior,
establish your own identity through your will to survive. Because, if
you allow the do-gooders to disarm you, the aggressive, no-account,
low-life will exploit those weaknesses and it might cost you your life.